The nonpartisan group State Budget Solutions recently reported states as a group owe $4 trillion. According to the study, Arkansas’ total debt — counting pension liabilities, which is most of it — is $25 billion, ranking it 14th most in the country and 17th most per capita.

Whether you accept the study’s particulars, it’s still an inconvenient truth that Arkansas has debt, which makes it hard for me to write the rest of this column arguing for more of it.

But I’ll try.

On Nov. 8, Arkansans once again will go to the polls (well, a fraction of us will). This election is for a $575 million bond issue that would pay for reconstructing 400 miles of Arkansas’ interstates. It’s very similar to a bond issue passed by voters in 1999 that rebuilt 356 miles of interstates and kept the orange barrel industry busy for years.

It enjoys bipartisan support. When Gov. Beebe announced the date of the election, the chairmen of the Democratic and Republican parties were on each side of him. That doesn’t happen often anymore.

A “yes” vote would not lead to more taxes and a “no” vote would not reduce them, but passing the bond issue would lay a lot of asphalt much more quickly than the traditional “pay as you go” method where the state pays for each mile only as it has the money in the bank.

Debt is bad, especially the kind that government creates, but adding debt to repair roads is acceptable for two reasons. First, while government does a lot of things it should not do, it definitely should build and maintain highways. And second, when it comes to those highways, we’re going to be in debt whether we realize it or not.

Every day, the interstates are inferior to their condition of the day before. They are damaged whenever we drive, whenever the sun shines and whenever it rains.

Unless we hit a pothole, we don’t notice what is happening as we speed merrily along. But beneath our tires the debt is increasing.

The state can choose to maintain highways responsibly, or it can wait until the roads are so bad and so dangerous it has no choice but to repair them, at much higher cost. When it comes to interstate highways, we can pay now or we can pay later, but we still pay, and if we pay later, we pay more.

Bad roads slow traffic, damage cars and lead to accidents. Moreover, a safe and effective transportation system is good for commerce and the economy. The American Society of Civil Engineers — and, granted, this group has a financial interest in arguing for spending money on roads — recently reported the country’s deteriorating surface infrastructure will cost the economy almost 900,000 jobs and reduce the growth of the gross domestic product by $900 billion by 2020. Ignore the problem and employers will pay more for travel delays and vehicle repairs and less for paychecks. Households will see less income and pay more for goods.

The report recommends the country spend $1.7 trillion between now and 2020 on highway and transit systems. Whew — let’s start with the $575 million bond issue in Arkansas.

If the state is ever going to add debt, this is the time, with interest rates at historic lows. Prices for petroleum, asphalt’s primary ingredient, are high, but does anyone believe they will fall much lower?

We Americans — and Arkansans, unfortunately, are no different — tend to ignore growing problems until they become a crisis. Such is the case with the condition of our interstates, which right now is just a problem.

Steve Brawner is an independent journalist in Arkansas. His blog — Independent Arkansas — is linked at Arkansasnews.com. His email address is brawnersteve@mac.com.